Beauty's bounty on - con creatures

[No brains]

The Beauty's Bounty feat from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a would work excellently with undead or constructs, except that the prerequisite for the feat is the creature type of fey.

I need to cheat this.

The first cheat that I can imagine is a poor literal laywering that points out that the only prerequisite is "Fey" and not "Creature Type: Fey" a creature that can be called Fey for any reason could potentially qualify. This is a brainless, weaksauce loaf of brown and might only work on a DM who has never even played any RPG before. I put it in here for laughs. Who can think of a better way to be/ count as a fey while having a - con score?

[Red Fel]

Ritual of Association, Savage Species, p. 148. +0 LA, allows the subject to count as a given type or subtype for the purpose of using magic items or qualifying for prestige classes (and, I assume, for feats). It explicitly excludes Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, and Halfling subtypes of Humanoid; nothing else is excluded. Note that because you are treated as the type, instead of actually becoming the type, the Type Pyramid is not invoked.

Thus, an undead or construct exposed to the Ritual counts as Fey for qualification purposes, but is not Fey by any other definition.

This assumes, of course, that you're comfortable with the delicious broken mess of 3.0 that is Savage Species.

[No brains]

This assumes, of course, that you're comfortable with the delicious broken mess of 3.0 that is Savage Species.

I don't know, is Ritual of Association one of the more broken things to come out of SS? It seems to exist specifically for nullifying limitations, but I don't know if it is the worst thing out of SS.

[Nettlekid]

Perhaps any Fey/Half-Fey/Fey-descended (but retaining the Fey type) that can qualify for Human Heritage, counting as a Human as well, and then going Necropolitan to count as an Undead, Human, and Fey?

Though you do realize that all you're doing is gaining Cha to HP once. It's worse than Improved Toughness if your Cha score is below 50.

[Doorhandle]

The Beauty's Bounty feat from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a would work excellently with undead or constructs, except that the prerequisite for the feat is the creature type of fey.

I need to cheat this.

The first cheat that I can imagine is a poor literal laywering that points out that the only prerequisite is "Fey" and not "Creature Type: Fey" a creature that can be called Fey for any reason could potentially qualify. This is a brainless, weaksauce loaf of brown and might only work on a DM who has never even played any RPG before. I put it in here for laughs. Who can think of a better way to be/ count as a fey while having a - con score?

I think by rules as written construct wouldn't get bonus health from charisma anyway; wouldn't they just get health form their size and that's it?

Also: In pathfinder, undead already use their charisma score for fortitude/health: which makes sense, even if it indicates there area lot of frail wizard liches out there...

[No brains]

It's this passage that confuses me:


At each level thereafter, you use your Constitution modifier normally to determine bonus hit points, but you also gain +1 hit point for every point of permanent Charisma you gain. In addition, Charisma increases can retroactively increase the bonus hit points from your first level.

The phrasing after the "but" in that first sentence is odd. I read that to mean that when I gain hit points each level, I also gain a hit point for each single point of Charisma that I have gained since creation. I re-read the example and it gives me a clearer idea of what the feat was intended to do.

As for Beauty's Bounty vs Improved Toughness, Improved Toughness is better in the long run as it is +1 hp per level. Beauty's Bounty really seems better for low levels when charisma is high, especially since a base Fort save of +2 can come as late as 6th level. I need to graph this.

I guess I should just consult X stat to Y then.

[Nettlekid]

It's this passage that confuses me:



The phrasing after the "but" in that first sentence is odd. I read that to mean that when I gain hit points each level, I also gain a hit point for each single point of Charisma that I have gained since creation. I re-read the example and it gives me a clearer idea of what the feat was intended to do.

As for Beauty's Bounty vs Improved Toughness, Improved Toughness is better in the long run as it is +1 hp per level. Beauty's Bounty really seems better for low levels when charisma is high, especially since a base Fort save of +2 can come as late as 6th level. I need to graph this.

I guess I should just consult X stat to Y then.

Ah, I see where you're going with this, and I think the grammar is confusing. The RAI seems fairly straightforward to me, and I think the RAW support it well enough. The part about the Constitution each level is indeed referring to each level, and the part that part that starts with "but" is not speaking about each level. They should have spaced that out to make it clearer. Basically, at first level you gain your Cha to HP. If your Cha increases permanently at any time, you retroactively gain that increase (gain +1 hit point for every point of permanent Charisma you gain) to your HP at that time. It basically works a lot like Improved Toughness but using Cha instead of HD.

If your Cha is greater than 3 and less than your level, then Beauty's Bounty is better than both Toughness and Improved Toughness. If your Cha is less than 3, Toughness is better. If your Cha is less than your level, Improved Toughness is better. And in all cases, it's <20 HP for a feat slot. Not worth it.

[No brains]

Ah, I see where you're going with this, and I think the grammar is confusing. The RAI seems fairly straightforward to me, and I think the RAW support it well enough. The part about the Constitution each level is indeed referring to each level, and the part that part that starts with "but" is not speaking about each level. They should have spaced that out to make it clearer. Basically, at first level you gain your Cha to HP. If your Cha increases permanently at any time, you retroactively gain that increase (gain +1 hit point for every point of permanent Charisma you gain) to your HP at that time. It basically works a lot like Improved Toughness but using Cha instead of HD.

If your Cha is greater than 3 and less than your level, then Beauty's Bounty is better than both Toughness and Improved Toughness. If your Cha is less than 3, Toughness is better. If your Cha is less than your level, Improved Toughness is better. And in all cases, it's <20 HP for a feat slot. Not worth it.

I understand that it is only a flat bonus now, thanks again for the correction. I'm a little disappointed, but I can move on easy enough. I did the graphing and depending on what is considered "permanent" charisma, BB can contend with IT pretty well. Likely "permanent" just refers to the 4 level ability boost, and in that case IT is almost universally better. It can be argued that the +5 inherent bonus from wish also counts as unambiguously "permanent" but it comes in way too late and only makes BB equal IT for a little bit. Now if a cloak of charisma is permanent enough for the DM, then 8th level could see a spike in HP. Although you're still right in that neither of these bonuses work really well in the long term. It's still a fun little thing for maybe a low-magic E6 campagin, but even then there are better feats. Oh well.

[Chronos]

What you really want is Faerie Mysteries Initiate, which lets you get Int to HP in place of Con, at every level.